Church App vs Church Website: Do You Need Both?

Sooner or later it comes up in a staff meeting: should we get a church app?

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The pitch is appealing. Your own branded app in the App Store, push notifications, giving in two taps, sermons in everyone's pocket. Companies like Subsplash, Pushpay and Tithe.ly all offer one, and if you use Planning Center, Church Center is already sitting there.

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The question that doesn't get asked enough is whether you actually need one. Here's how we think about it.

What a church app does well

Apps are good at serving people who are already connected to your church.

• Push notifications. You can reach people's lock screens directly with service changes, event reminders and urgent updates.
• Giving. For regular attenders who have the app installed, giving takes a couple of taps.
• Sermons and media. A dedicated home for your sermon library, podcasts and devotionals.
• Community tools. Depending on the platform, things like groups, event sign-ups, prayer requests and check-in.

Where church apps fall short

Most guests won't download it

Your most engaged members will install your app. The people you most want to reach, like first-time guests and people still checking you out, almost never will. Nobody downloads an app for a church they haven't visited yet.

Costs vary a lot

Church apps range from free (Tithe.ly's basic app, or Church Center if you already pay for Planning Center) to several hundred dollars a month for a fully branded app from providers like Subsplash or Pushpay. Before you sign up, compare that cost to how many people in your church will actually open it each week.

It's one more thing to update

Unless your app pulls from the same source as your website, every event, sermon and announcement has to go in two places. For a stretched staff, one of them usually gets neglected.

Apps don't help people find you

When someone searches "churches near me," your app doesn't show up. Your website does. App content is invisible to Google and to AI search tools like ChatGPT.

What your website does that an app can't

Your website is how new people find you, through Google, Maps, social links and word of mouth. About 80% of people visit a church's website before they ever attend in person.

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It also works for everyone, right away. No app store, no download, no storage space. Someone hears about your church, taps a link, and they're on your Plan a Visit page. Every page you publish also helps you show up in search, which an app can't do.

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A well-built site works on every device too. If it's designed for phones first, it does most of what people expect from an app without asking them to install anything.

So do you need both?

Every church needs a great website. Not every church needs an app.

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Our rule of thumb: if you have fewer than about 500 regular attenders, put your budget into the website first. A strong site with giving, sermons, events and clear visitor information handles both outreach and serving your members.

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Larger churches with an engaged, digitally active congregation can get real value from an app as a supplement to the website. The app serves your most connected people. The website keeps doing the heavy lifting for outreach.

If you use Planning Center, start with Church Center

If your church already uses Planning Center for check-in, groups, giving or registrations, you have Church Center. It's a member-facing app for the data you already manage in Planning Center, so it isn't a separate content system to keep updated, and it comes with your Planning Center subscription.

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For a lot of churches, that's the right app. Your website handles discovery and first impressions, and Church Center handles the logged-in, member-side tasks. When we build church websites, we connect them to the tools churches already use, like Church Center, Planning Center and Subsplash giving, so the two feel like one experience instead of two separate systems.

Where we'd put the budget

If you're choosing between a better website and a new app, start with the website. It serves everyone who finds your church online. An app serves a portion of the people who already attend.

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Once your website is doing its job, and your church has grown to where an app would clearly help your members, add one.

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Want a mobile-first site that works alongside the tools your church already uses? Get a quote and we'll walk you through what that could look like.